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Further Reading

iFixit's product teardowns often show you how to fix gadgets, but in the case of Apple's Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil accessories for the iPad Pro they have been more academic. Neither device is meant to be opened, and the act of opening them also happens to irreparably destroy them.

It's still interesting to see what's inside them, though, even more so when you don't have to sacrifice your own expensive accessories to do it. After cutting the keyboard's canvas open with a knife, iFixit discovered blank keys with the exact same switches used in the Retina MacBook (Apple itself said it was using the same technology for both devices). There are also small "channels" under the canvas that lead to vents placed at the top of the keyboard—since the keys are all completely covered, iFixit speculates that this system allows air to enter and exit the case as keys are moved up and down.

Finally, inside the case itself, iFixit got a look at the "conductive fabric" that moves power and data from the iPad's Smart Connector to the keyboard. These are strips of actual fabric, not thin cables or wires, and both Apple and iFixit posit that the fabric strips will stand up better to repeated folding and unfolding than wires would.

The Smart Keyboard rates a rare 0 out of 10 on iFixit's repairability scale, since doing anything to try to fix it will just break it worse. Even the Apple Pencil got a 1 out of 10—yes, opening it still breaks it, but at least you can replace the tip.

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Andrew Cunningham
Andrew wrote and edited tech news and reviews at Ars Technica from 2012 to 2017, where he still occasionally freelances; he is currently a lead editor at Wirecutter. He also records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites